Existing carts found in many grocery and other stores need to be stored when not in use and can be nested to conserve space. This is done by the rear wall of the basket of the cart, underneath the push handle of the cart, being hinged nearest the handle and swinging forward and upward so that a front end of another cart may be pushed therein in a nesting fashion to conserve storage space. To permit this nesting operation the basket of the carts must be tapered, with the front of the cart basket being smaller than the rear of the cart basket nearest the handle. Due to the tapered shape of the cart basket the plane in which the top surface of the basket lies is not horizontal to the ground.
In some hardware and building goods stores, such as the Home Depot chain, such nesting carts are utilized. In addition, larger flat bed and other carts designed to carry loads that are larger than the nestable carts normally carry are provided to carry lumber, plywood and other items that cannot fit into the conventional nestable carts. A problem exists in that too often the larger carts are all in use so shoppers try to make do with the conventional nestable carts when they are purchasing one or a few pieces of larger items such as lumber and pipe that are long and cannot fit inside the cart. The shoppers position such longer items on top of the cart. However, with the top of a nestable cart basket not being level the longer items sitting on top of the cart too often fall off or almost fall off and continuously need repositioning. Nevertheless to say, this is a dangerous situation and people get hurt when long loads positioned on top of the cart basket shift and fall due to their weight, or when they are inadvertently bumped and fall off the top of the cart basket. This also happens with non-nestable carts the tops of which are level.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a conventional type cart that can easily and safely carry longer items that cannot fit inside the cart.